Many mailboxes, particularly those used in a rural or suburban setting, are mounted at a site remote from the house of the owner such as alongside a street or road.
It is desirable to be able to ascertain whether or not any mail has been deposited in the box without having to physically leave the house and proceed to the box to inspect it. The desirability of such a feature has been recognized for years and a number of different approaches to solving the problem have been attempted.
In some instances, springs have been utilized to activate the signal while, in other instances, counterweights provide the activating force.
Examples of various signaling devices of this general type found in the patent prior art can be seen in several U.S. patents such as Eging U.S. Pat. No. 3,102,684; Goodman U.S. Pat. No. 3,516,383; Harmon U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,811; Sherrill U.S. Pat. No. 4,138,056; Hudson U.S. Pat. No. 4,171,086 and Dion U.S. Pat. No. 4,473,182.
Generally, these devices require some modification to the mailbox itself and they also are somewhat restricted as to the precise point of mounting.
Thus, while the devices disclosed in the above-noted patents are presumably operative for the purposes for which they are designed none of them appears to present a simple, economical, easy to mount and compact signaling apparatus which is automatically activated by the opening of the door of the mailbox, is restricted in its mounting point only by its visibility from a remote location and requires virtually no physical alteration of the mailbox.